


The Rift Between Us

by jellyfishfics



Series: The Rift AU [1]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Angst, Domestic Fluff, Fluff, Heartbreak, Humor, M/M, Married Couple, OC children - Freeform, One-Sided Attraction, Pining, Trans Keith (Voltron), Unrequited Love, Unrequited Sheith, all the fluff has to do with keitor and all the angst has to do with sheith and i'm sor r y, is it really one-sided though?, is it really unrequited though?, liberal use of quintessence, married keitor, mentions of past trans man pregnancy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-01
Updated: 2018-06-01
Packaged: 2019-05-16 17:51:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,382
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14816006
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jellyfishfics/pseuds/jellyfishfics
Summary: While on patrol, Shiro and the team discover another rift of quintessence, and find an unexpected future waiting on the other side.





	The Rift Between Us

**Author's Note:**

> ~~This fic is so much longer than I originally intended it to be...~~
> 
>  
> 
> Please enjoy this behemoth of emotions that came from my unsatisfied post s5 self ruminating on Keith's parallels with Lotor and his future, and someone had to suffer, so I'm sorry Shiro.
> 
> I swear sheith was my first love, and I still love them, but keitor came in and knocked me on my ass and now I'm incapable of writing anything but Them.

_“I’m calling you from the future_  
_To let you know we made a mistake”_  
_—Champion, Fall Out Boy_

It’s supposed to be a standard patrol—they’ve been patrolling quadrants of the Voltron Coalition ever since the tentative peace that was established after the near disaster of Naxzela—when Shiro comes across something he’s never seen in the long years he’s spent stuck in space.

It’s a long cut into the cosmos, bleeding brilliant gold into the inky blackness of space. The sight reminds Shiro of the antique plates and bowls his grandmother had on display in her home in Japan, cracks repaired with gold. Shiro isn’t too sure what he’s looking at is a repair or the crack itself.

“Guys,” Shiro says over their comm link. “Rendezvous at my position. I’ve found something.”

When the rest of the lions join him, Shiro has been staring into the mesmerizing vortex for at least a dobash. He’s about to ask Pidge to scan and identify it, when Lance cuts in.

“Quiznack! It’s another one!”

“Another one?” Shiro asks.

“We stumbled across one of these rifts earlier, when Keith was piloting the black lion, and you were still missing,” Allura answers. “It’s a rift of quintessence, and it probably leads to another reality.”

Shiro feels his eyes widen and jaw almost drop. “Another reality? Like what Slav was always going on about?”

“Oh, yeah,” Hunk says. “We _met_ another Slav in the other reality. He was pretty much the same as the one in our reality. But we also met another you! It was so freaky, your name was Sven and you were _Swedish,_ and you were a member of the resistance called the Guns of Gamora, like Keith is a member of the Blades of Marmora, and the Alteans were evil like the Galra are evil in our universe, and Allura was their Empress!”

“Wait, wait, wait,” Shiro interrupts before Hunk can go on. Hunk gave Shiro a lot of information to digest, but one part sticks out in particular: “I was _Swedish?”_

“Yeah!” Lance confirms. “You ‘yoohooed’ at us from a vent to get our attention! And you took a blaster shot to save my life!”

“Well, the last part sounds like me at least,” Shiro mutters, still trying to figure out what a Swedish version of himself looks like. Was he blonde with blue eyes?

Lance gasps and asks in a breathy voice. “You’d take a bullet for me in this reality too, Shiro?”

Shiro rolls his eyes. He can hear Lance batting his eyelashes and he’s grossed out, a little, imagining that look on Lance’s face. “I’d take a bullet for any of you.”

“Gay,” Pidge retorts. “But anyway, do you think this means that this is another reality holding another trans-reality comet?”

“You mean the comet they used to build Voltron?” Shiro asks.

“Yeah, there was another one in the other reality we visited, and we took it to keep it away from the evil Alteans there, but Lotor stole it from us here to build his ships,” Pidge says.

“Do you think we should go through this rift as well, to prevent another catastrophe as we did in the last alternate reality we visited?” Allura asks. “The Altean Empire there wanted to use the comet to visit other realities and spread their influence.”

The comm is silent for a few ticks. Finally, Shiro speaks up as their leader.

“Well, we can’t just ignore it. And we shouldn’t wait for something to come out before we take action. So our best option is to go in.”

“Alright,” Pidge agrees.

“If we beat one reality, we can beat any other!” Lance chimes in.

“Yeah, we got this!” Hunk cheers.

“We’re ready when you are, Shiro,” Allura tells him.

“Team, let’s form Voltron!” Shiro yells, with everyone joining in.

They get into formation, and once together, push through the rift. The resistance of the quintessence shakes them like an earthquake, and Shiro grits his teeth. Once they’ve fully made it through, Voltron goes offline for a tick or two, and then flickers back to life.

“Oof, everyone ok?” Hunk asks.

“My glasses fell off, but they’re fine,” Pidge answers.

“I’m alright,” Allura says, a little winded.

“Easy peasy,” Lance says, but his voice shakes a little.

“Shiro?” Hunk asks. “You ok too?”

Shiro doesn’t answer immediately because he’s too busy gaping at the spot where the rift just was and now _isn’t._

“The-the rift is gone,” is all Shiro can force out of his slack jaw.

“Oh yeah, that happened last time,” Pidge says, unbothered. “I’ll just take down our coordinates so we know where to exit when we want to leave. We just have to push through the same spot and the rift will reopen and let us go back to our reality.”

“O…ok…” Shiro replies, still trying to get over his momentary shock of potentially being stuck in another reality for the rest of his life.

“Anyone know where we are?” Lance asks.

The rift sent them just outside the orbit of a planet lush with greenery. Shiro turns Voltron around so they can get a better view of it.

“I’ll do a bioscan of it now,” Pidge answers. A couple of ticks pass by, and Pidge continues. “So it’s a rainforest type planet; humid, lots of trees and wildlife. The atmosphere is breathable for us, but a lot of it is uncivilized.”

“Oh!” Allura exclaims. “I remember this planet! Coran and I passed it over when we were looking for more planets to join the Coalition. But there was no civilization on it, so we ignored it.”

“That’s…odd. My scanner is picking up a civilization here now. It doesn’t encompass the whole planet, but it’s big enough to be a large city on Earth,” Pidge says.

“So at least thousands of people live there?” Shiro asks.

“Yeah,” Pidge replies.

“That’s impossible! It would take decophebes for such a feat to be accomplished!” Allura protests.

“Well, this is an alternate reality,” Hunk reminds them. “Maybe they’ve always been here, and stayed small?”

“There’s only one way to find out,” Lance says. “Shiro, are we going in?”

“Yeah,” Shiro says. They didn’t go through the rift into another universe to hesitate now. “We’ll split into our lions, but stay in tight formation.”

Flying into the atmosphere, Shiro hopes this isn’t a mistake. The others may have survived an alternate reality once, but that doesn’t mean they should keep playing with volatile fire like this.

_What would Keith say, if he were here?_ Shiro can’t help but think as they descend closer to the ground. _What input would he offer, what advice could he give?_

They decide to land a safe distance from the civilization to not arouse suspicion, but that means more ground to cover on foot. Once out of their lions, they pull off their helmets and breathe the first fresh air they’ve gotten in weeks.

Pidge was right; the air is humid and it immediately sticks to their skin and the backs of their throats.

“Do we really have to walk in this heat?” Lance whines.

There’s two suns in the sky that Shiro didn’t notice before and what must attribute to the temperature. But looking ahead, the trees form a canopy that blocks most of the rays. “There’s plenty of shade up ahead once we start exploring the forest.”

Lance groans, but everyone else follows Shiro willingly. Inside the forest is a bit better; the air is cooler and less suffocating, but still a little muggy, and it wears the team down quicker than usual. Shiro would be afraid of them getting lost in a tired stupor if Pidge wasn’t keeping track of their progress with a mini scanner honed in on the center of the civilization on the planet.

“That’s probably where the capital is, and where the leader of this planet lives,” Pidge explains.

They keep walking for at least half a varga before Pidge’s scanner starts beeping like crazy.

“WHOA!” Hunk jumps from his spot beside Pidge. “What’s happening, are we being attacked!?”

“No,” Pidge says, adjusting her glasses and glaring at Hunk. “We’re close to the center, but we’ve encountered some life forms even closer to us.”

“Uh, yeah? We’ve passed like a dozen lizards on trees in the last dobash,” Lance says.

“My scanner only picks up _intelligent_ life Lance, something you wouldn’t know about,” Pidge retorts.

“Hey!” Lance starts, but Allura cuts him off.

“So, that means we aren’t alone right now?” she asks.

“Yeah…” Pidge confirms, and everyone stiffens.

“Form a circle!” Shiro barks out. “Backs in, face out! Grab your bayards but don’t form weapons yet.”

Ticks go by, but the ambush doesn’t come. They stay rigid in their spots, holding their bayards up to their chests, and now maybe a dobash has passed. Shiro is about to let out the breath he’s been holding and tell the team to drop their stances, when bushes a good ten feet away start to rustle.

“Oh my god, is that it? Is that the intelligent life?” Hunk whispers to the rest of them.

“There’s only one way to find out,” Shiro sighs. “Stay together and watch each other’s backs. We’re going to check it out.”

The team takes slow, creeping steps toward the ominous bushes. Shiro can feel everyone’s anxiety heighten with every inch closer they get.

Finally, they reach the bushes, and Shiro realizes the team has more or less moved behind him. Shiro resists the urge to roll his eyes and bites the bullet, reaching out and yanking the shrubbery apart.

A child blinks up at them, and everyone’s hearts collectively stop. The kid looks like a toddler, not even old enough for school yet, sitting on the ground and playing with some kind of alien looking Rubik’s cube puzzle thing.

The child has long, wavy silver-gray hair, tied in a loose, low ponytail, lilac toned skin, pale yellow eyes, and indigo irises. At first Shiro thinks the kid has Altean markings, but upon closer inspection, he realizes that there are two cream colored, tiger-stripe like marks on each cheek bone. The marks remind Shiro somewhat of Ulaz’s markings.

The kid does have pointed ears though, and Shiro only knows a handful of people with ears like that. But there’s something else, eerily _familiar_ about this child the more Shiro stares. The shape of the eyes, the fall of the bangs, the furrowed brows as the kid concentrates more on the toy…something is ringing bells in Shiro’s head, but he can’t see the whole picture.

“That’s an Altean puzzle toy!” Allura whispers.

“Do you think this kid is part Altean?” Hunk asks.

“I…I’m not sure…” Allura says. “Certainly, features are there, but…”

“Do you think the kid stole it?” Lance asks.

Suddenly, the child’s head snaps up, and everyone takes a step back in shock. The glare and pout set off more bells in Shiro’s head, but he’s still as lost as when he heard the first chimes of familiarity.

“I didn’t steal it,” the kid says. “It was a present. From my aunt.”

Before any of the paladins can reply, the kid looks up, nods, and then looks back at them.

“You should watch your heads.”

It’s all the warning they get before a _double_ of the child in front of them descends down from the treetops, brandishing a sword and smacking them all into unconsciousness.

***

When Shiro gets his bearings back, it’s with a throbbing ache at the back of his head, and he’s seeing double. A tick passes by, and Shiro realizes he isn’t seeing double, but seeing the apparent twins bickering in front of them.

“I caught them!” the twin with a sword yells. The sword is polished wood, and painted to look like a blade from the Marmora. The twin swings it in agitation, and Shiro sees that the other side is painted to look like the red bayard when Keith forms it into a weapon.

_That’s kind of odd,_ Shiro thinks, but maybe news of Voltron has spread across this universe as well, and this kid has taken an extreme liking to Keith.

The other twin glares back, and it’s that same overly familiar look that Shiro can’t place. He’s seen that expression before, but on a different face.

“No, I did.”

“I did!”

“I did.”

“I did!”

“I did.”

As the twins continue arguing, Shiro figures it’s good a time as any to make his escape. He tries to move, but he discovers that his hands are bound behind his back, and he’s tied up with the rest of the paladins in one big back to back heap, with vines from the forest around them.

How long were they out that a pair of toddler twins had enough time to do this!?

Hunk groans next, and Shiro can feel the shifting of the rest of the paladins beginning to wake as well.

Suddenly twin pairs of pale yellow eyes and indigo irises snap to them.

“The prisoners stir,” the sword twin says, and Shiro feels himself and all the paladins stiffen.

“What should we do with them?” the puzzle twin asks.

The sword twin grins, showing off budding fangs. “We kill ‘em.”

“Oh my god,” Hunk squeaks in horror, while Allura gasps. Shiro feels his own blood run cold; he can’t believe they’re about to die to a set of murderous twin toddlers.

The puzzle twin frowns, and Shiro recognizes that look as well. “We can’t kill them. Papa says it’s wrong to kill people that don’t commit crimes.”

The sword twin pouts now, and Shiro doesn’t know how many eerie-familiar looks he can handle in another universe without some explanation. “Trespassing is a crime.”

“Not a crime punishable by death,” the puzzle twin argues, and the twins devolve back into bickering again.

Shiro can tell they’re very young by the tone and sound of their voices, but he is surprised by how articulate they are.

“Hey,” Lance whispers. “Don’t you think the new twin looks kind of like Allura?”

Shiro looks at the twin in question with the rest of the paladins. Getting a better look, Shiro realizes the sword twin’s hair style is different, and the only way to really set the twins apart besides the items in their hands, given that the twins are wearing identical long tunics and legging-like pants underneath.

The sword twin’s hair is half up and half down, tied high on the back of the head with wispy curls dusting the forehead. Two ringlets fall in front of the ears, and the rest of the hair cascades wild, curly, and silver-gray, like storm clouds. The puzzle twin’s is more like combed out waves, and has bangs covering the forehead in contrast.

Shiro turns his head to see Allura paling at the implication of such a violent child being related to her.

“You’re not looking at the kid past the hair,” Pidge says. “Besides the pointy ears and the hair, these kids look nothing like Allura.”

Allura breathes a sigh of relief at the same time a new voice calls over them.

“ALRIGHT! I counted one hundred dobashes! Now, where are my little stars hiding?”

Suddenly, the sword twin giggles, and the puzzle twin smiles small, but genuine. The familiarity buzzes through Shiro again, but he ignores it in favor of the mounting terror of a very _adult_ voice approaching them.

“We’re over here, Daddy!” the sword twin yells back.

The steps get louder, and the paladins collectively start scooting back in a feeble attempt to get away.

“You know the point of hide-and-seek is to not reveal your location, right?” the voice asks.

The twins giggle again. “We know that! But we have something important to show you!”

“Now whatever could that be, hm? More moon newts?” The figure’s shadow is now visible, and Shiro mentally prepares a speech to give in order to hand himself over for the freedom of the rest of the team.

“Not more moon newts,” the puzzle twin answers. “Something else.”

“Come and see!” the sword twin exclaims, bouncing with excitement.

“I’m here now,” the voice says, stepping over some bushes. “Show me what’s got you two so excited?”

“I caught trespassers!” the twins say in unison.

There’s a shriek of shock not coming from any of them, so Shiro looks up and sees an incredibly horrified…Lotor?

It’s definitely Lotor he’s looking at, he looks more or less the same in this universe as he does in theirs, but he’s wearing exquisite robes instead of armor, and his hair is up in a simple ponytail at the back of his head. He looks much more royal here, than he does as the newly crowned emperor of the Galra state.

And he’s also a _father_ , evidenced by the pouting twins pulling at his shirtsleeves.

“Aren’t you proud of me Daddy?” sword twin asks in a forlorn voice.

“Daddy should be proud of _me,”_ puzzle twin sniffs. _“I_ caught them.”

“No! Me! I did!”

Before the twins can argue further, Lotor pats them both on the heads. “I’m…very proud of both of you, my stars. You’ve tied some excellent knots, and you were very resourceful to use vines, and the environment to your benefit.”

The twins brighten at the praise.

“However,” Lotor continues. “You know that whenever you meet strangers, before you talk to them, you have to tell Daddy or Papa first right? They could be dangerous.”

“That’s why we tied them up and called you over, Daddy,” sword twin says innocently.

“No you didn’t!” Lance cuts in. “You wanted to kill us!”

Sword twin turns and hisses at him, and Lance recoils in shock. Even puzzle twin glowers at Lance for ruining their ruse.

“Alright, let’s come to a truce, shall we?” Lotor approaches them and pulls out a small knife from his belt. The paladins struggle, but Lotor only uses it to cut the vine tying them all together. “You can get up now.” Lotor turns to address the twins. “We’re inviting our ‘guests’ to the castle, ok?”

The twins pout but nod, each taking Lotor’s hands.

“Hey, what about our hands?” Pidge asks.

Lotor smiles apologetically at them. “Unfortunately, they’ll need to stay bound. I don’t know who you are, and the safety of my children is my priority.”

Shiro wonders how dangerous of a threat they pose when the twins were the ones who captured them in the first place.

“What do you mean you don’t know who we are!? We’re the paladins of Voltron! Everyone knows us!” Lance yells.

An uneasy look crosses Lotor’s face while the twins laugh at them.

“No you’re not!” sword twin says, still pealing laughter.

“We’ve met the paladins,” puzzle twin says, head cocking to the side and face furrowing in confusion. Again, Shiro feels the ghost of the expression haunt him. “And they’re not any of you.”

***

Lotor leads them to a castle in the center of the city, just as Pidge had predicted. The forest they were walking through had framed the impressive structure, shielding it from view. It’s an odd mix of gothic architecture and space aesthetics, as if someone took the Notre Dame and mashed it with the castle ship. It’s a gloomy red, accented with dark blues and purples, looming above them, yet still somehow holds a futuristic flair.

Instead of going through the huge, ornate main doors, Lotor leads them to a side entrance.

“They’re a formality,” Lotor explains. “We only ever open them during ceremonies and summits, because they’re a hassle to open and a larger hassle to close.”

The hallway leads straight to the living apartments, Shiro guesses, because they pass no paintings, portraits, or other finery most castles have for show. They end up in a large living room-like area, that almost looks like something stripped from an IKEA catalogue.

There’s a large rug with scattered toys and a fortress of blocks, and more toys heaped in an open toy chest. The twins let go of Lotor’s hands and race over there, the puzzle twin setting the puzzle inside the chest while the sword twin kicks the fortress down.

Lotor immediately, almost frantically starts typing into the communication device on his wrist, but Shiro can’t understand any letters of the Galra alphabet.

There’s a large screen on one wall that reminds Shiro vaguely of a TV, and a medium sized table with chairs, with a few papers scattered at two chairs across from each other.

Shiro looks around the room further to find the paladins have spread out; Pidge, Allura, and Hunk inspecting the large bookcase behind them but unable to grab anything because of their tied hands, and Lance inspecting the odd potted plant in the corner of the room.

Lotor is waiting by the only other door in the room, anxiously tapping his foot. Shiro is about to ask him what’s going on, when one of the twins starts wailing. Lotor startles in place, but recovers instantly and moves to cross the threshold and reach the carpet on the other side of the door, when it slides open.

Shiro feels his heart stop at the sight. Because right in the doorway is _Keith._ Keith, but…not Keith. This Keith, like this Lotor, is obviously different from _their_ Keith.

This Keith has a long purple mark, like a gash, climbing up from the back of his neck and ending on his right cheek. He’s wearing a variant of the blade of Marmora armor, seemingly like Kollivan’s leader garb, but more a mishmash of the Blade’s suit and Lotor’s armor. This Keith’s hair is longer, _much longer,_ set in a simple braid that ends at his waist. His free strands and bangs curl sweetly around his face in a way Shiro has only see happen in the hot steam of the Galaxy Garrison showers.

_The humidity,_ his slow brain supplies, Keith’s hair is curling because of the humidity.

Keith can’t see them because Lotor had only managed to take two steps, effectively blocking the entrance with his body. He looks up at Lotor and his purple eyes catch the light, eyebrow raising and mouth quirking with amusement.

_God, he’s beautiful,_ Shiro thinks as his heart splutters and restarts in his chest like a faulty engine, and Shiro thinks it’s been too long since he’s seen _his_ Keith.

Shiro takes a sneak glance around the room and notes that he isn’t the only paladin shell-shocked by seeing Keith from their different vantage points in the room, everyone either gaping or bug-eyed.

“A tantrum was so urgent you had to message me for it?” Keith asks Lotor.

“Er—well,” Lotor starts, but Keith rolls his eyes and steps over to the rug, crouching to be at eye level with the twins.

“Alright, alright,” Keith sighs fondly. “What’s wrong?” From this new position, Shiro can see that Keith is wearing a large backpack that looks like a turtle shell made out of smooth obsidian.

“I—” puzzle twin starts, but sword twin cuts in with a louder wail.

“ULAZ IS A LIAR!” Keith’s eyes widen, and Ulaz, formerly ‘puzzle twin,’ looks ready to throttle his twin.

Keith sighs again, but the fondness is gone. “Let’s calm down now,” he starts. “Minnie, that’s a big accusation you’re throwing at your brother with no backing.”

“I, I,” Minnie hiccups and sobs, and Lotor’s expression softens, taking a step towards them. Keith sends him a look over his shoulder that reads ‘let me handle this,’ and Lotor pauses.

“Stop crying,” Keith says, but softens the words by pulling Minnie closer and wiping her tears away. When her crying has died down into sniffles, Keith begins again. “I want both of you to tell me what happened in turns. Ulaz gets to go first because we don’t throw names, Minnie.”

Minnie pouts but nods, shifting closer to Keith with tears still clinging to her eyes. Keith opens his arms and hugs her close for comfort as Ulaz tells his side of the story. When Minnie finishes her part, Keith laughs.

“It sounds to me like both of you worked together, and deserve equal shares of the glory, right? Ulaz lured them, and Minnie struck. Then both of you tied them up.”

The twins blink at Keith, processing this information. Finally, Ulaz extends a hand out with a small smile towards Minnie.

“Share?” he asks. 

Minnie nods and takes his hand, face splitting in a bright grin.

Then, as quick as they made up, the twins dart out of the room through the same door Keith entered.

Lotor breathes a sigh of relief as Keith stands back up. “I don’t know how you do it,” Lotor says, awe and reverence lacing his tone in a way that makes the hair on the back of Shiro’s neck stand up.

Keith smiles up at him and chuckles. “It’s really not that hard. You just need to get on their level of understanding, and talk to them clearly.” Then his smile morphs into a smirk. “You really need to stop being a wimp about the kids crying all the time. You act like their tears could cause the castle to crumble.”

To the paladins’ surprise, Lotor chuckles. “You’re right, but that’s not why I called you over so urgently.” Lotor steps aside so Keith can see the room fully. 

Keith glances around the room in confusion, but does a double take when he realizes the twins’ departure hasn’t left him and Lotor alone. His eyes dart to each frozen paladin in the room, ending and lingering on Shiro.

Shiro is thunderstruck by the lightning of panic in Keith’s eyes staring into him.

Suddenly, Keith whips his head to Lotor and glares at him. “What. Did you do.”

Lotor lifts his hands up and shrinks back, something almost as jaw dropping as Keith’s arrival. The Lotor they know is a proud ruler who didn’t even back down from Zarkon to take his rightful place.

“I assure you, I only found them after the twins captured them, I have no idea how they got here.”

“And you left the twins alone long enough for them to encounter a potentially dangerous group of strangers!?” Keith asks, lethality dripping from his voice.

“We were playing an Earth game! Hide and seek! I was seeking!” Lotor defends as Keith rounds on him.

Shiro has half a mind to interject, when all of a sudden Keith’s backpack… _spasms._ Shiro blinks rapidly, thinking he might have imagined it, but the seemingly glass-like surface stretches in several spots again, like something is struggling to get free. Lance gasps, Hunk gags, and Allura looks as if she’s seen a ghost.

Pidge chokes, raising a hand and coughing to clear it. The gesture catches both Keith and Lotor’s attention. “So, uh, I’m gonna go out on a limb here and just ask…is your backpack supposed to act like it’s possessed?”

Keith gives her a baffled expression, and Lotor leans around Keith to check the backpack. It squirms again, and Keith finally seems to understand.

“Oh, Thace is awake. Can you get him out, Lotor?” Keith asks as he turns around to have the backpack face Lotor.

Lotor presses an unseen button on the side of the bag, and the obsidian shell dissolves to reveal…a baby.

A baby strapped to Keith’s back blinks blearily at them and yawns, kicking his limbs out in a stretch. He looks exactly like the twins, but obviously smaller, chubbier, and with less silver hair on his head.

Lotor carefully extracts him and cradles him so naturally it should be creepy. Keith turns around again and shucks the rest of the apparent baby harness to the floor, then steps closer to check on the infant. The baby reaches out upon seeing Keith, and is transferred to Keith’s equally natural hold.

Both Lotor and Keith smile sweetly over him, and the baby simply basks in it, grabbing Lotor’s finger and blowing a spit bubble.

Surprise after surprise is giving Shiro a headache, and he can tell the other paladins are faring just as bad. Shiro meets eyes with Lance, and Lance nods at him.

In a very Lance fashion, Lance complains, “Is _anyone_ going to explain what the quiznack is going on? What are you Keith, Lotor’s royal babysitter?”

If the room wasn’t tense enough, the intensity increases. A guilty expression crosses Lotor’s face as he glances Shiro’s way, and Keith becomes unreadable, shifting the baby in his arms upright.

Lance gets out an exasperated “Well?” and in the moment of searching for an answer between Keith and Lotor’s rigid postures, everything falls into place in Shiro’s head.

All the warning bells from earlier are clanging together now, and Shiro feels faint. At first glance, the children look just like Lotor. But all those familiar expressions, the way little Ulaz’s bangs fall over his face, Minnie brandishing a sword that mimics both of Keith’s. Keith and Lotor’s comfort around each other, the baby handling…

“You’re married,” Shiro breathes out in his shock, and it sounds like an accusation.

The guilty look on Lotor’s face intensifies, and Keith furrows his brows, mulling over a silent decision, and then finally looking up, straight at Shiro.

“Yeah, we are,” Keith confirms.

That statement alone feels like Keith drove his bayard through Shiro’s chest.

“How!?” Hunk asks, before amending, “If you, um, don’t mind me asking?” The other paladins perk in equal curiosity.

“We were arranged to be married by the Coalition after the war ended,” Keith answers simply.

“Wait, the war is over here?” Allura asks, tentative hope bleeding into her voice.

Lotor’s face is neutral now, as he stands beside Keith. “Yes, the war has been over for thirteen and a half years now.”

***

After such a bomb dropped on them on top of _everything,_ Keith and Lotor simply herd the team to Lotor’s lab for examination.

Their hands have been cut free, and they stand in a stiff line as assistant bots scan them head to toe for quintessence levels.

Keith stands beside Lotor’s chair, bouncing their baby as Lotor types and swipes screens at breakneck pace.

“Love,” Lotor says, not looking away from the screens or ceasing typing. “It’s fine if you retire for the evening. Thace will need to be fed soon, and I know you want to check on the twins. You came into this mess after a meeting as well.” Lotor pauses and regards Keith tenderly. “You must be exhausted.”

Keith shakes his head with a sigh. “I can’t rest without knowing how this came about or where they’re from. The twins are fine; we would have been alerted if anything was wrong with them. If I need to feed Thace, I’ll do it here.”

Lotor gives the paladins a brief glance, before conceding and turning back to the scan results. A new wave of assistant bots float over to them, and take blood samples.

Pidge rubs the sore spot where her blood was drawn. “Why is this all necessary? We’re from a different universe, why does it matter which universe we’re from?”

“Because you five could be psychos like the Alteans we met last time,” Keith growls.

“That may not be the case, though,” Lotor counters. “Since the war ended and New Daibazaal was founded, I’ve devoted myself to the study of quintessence—without abusing it. I want to learn as much as I can about quintessence so I can break its hold over the Galra. I’ve found that quintessence works in two distinct ways: it either affects time, or reality. The first rift of quintessence that opened on Old Daibazaal was quintessence that affected time, allowing my mother to keep Kova young, and allowing limitless energy. But that dependence, along with the dark creatures, poisoned her and my father, and cursed my bloodline to exist for much longer than natural, along with the rest of the Galra who could get their hands on it. It’s the same sort of quintessence that keeps planets alive as well.

“The rift you experienced firsthand was the second sort of quintessence the bends reality, so you were transported to an alternate reality,” Lotor finishes.

“So if the rift we went through wasn’t a trans-reality rift…” Hunk started.

“Then have we traveled through time!?” Allura gasps.

Lotor’s mouth is a grim line as he says, “We’ll find out.”

Tense ticks go by until Lotor’s holocomputer beeps with finality. The paladins try to crowd behind Lotor’s chair to see, but a stern glare from Keith keeps them at bay.

“Darling,” Lotor calls to Keith, and Keith levels one last glare before turning to Lotor and his results. “Double-check this for me. I cross referenced their DNA samples with the samples I have on our paladins, and I have the quintessence levels matched with similar types in my database. How does it read?”

The silence that follows makes Shiro want to squirm.

Finally, “It’s a match,” Keith confirms.

“I thought so,” Lotor sighs. “Given how young they are…” Keith nods. Lotor rubs his head as he saves the screens he has up to logs, and closes them out. He then stands and plasters on a cheerful look directed at the paladins. “Well then, on behalf of New Daibazaal, my husband, and myself, we welcome you to our home, young paladins. And to the future.”

***

They were given the guest apartments in the living quarters of the castle to sleep, but Shiro is restless. He stares out the balcony window at the giant moon in the sky, wishing the bathing moonlight would give him answers.

_This_ is his future? Keith, married to Lotor? Nothing is making sense. The Keith in his time has hardly spoken to Lotor!

…Are they even in love? Keith said their marriage was arranged, right? Lotor, surely, is affectionate, but Keith seems the same as he usually is, albeit a bit more playful. But they have three children together…

Before Shiro can ruminate more on this, his door slides open, and he jumps off his bed into a fighting stance.

Pidge grins in the doorway.

Shiro deflates immediately. _“Katie,_ don’t scare me like that.”

Pidge just laughs, and comes further into the room. “You can’t sleep either huh? The others are out like a light, but I can’t sleep here without doing some research first. Wanna come with me?”

Shiro quirks an eyebrow. “By ‘research,’ you mean you’re going to snoop, right?”

Pidge adjusts her glasses so they glint in the low moonlight. “Of course.”

Shiro sighs, but smiles despite himself. “Ok, I’ll come with you. Matt would kill me if I let you go on your own, anyway.”

Pidge rolls her eyes. “C’mon, I know you’re curious about Keith and Lotor’s relationship here. Maybe we’ll find out more about it in Lotor’s lab!”

Shiro chuckles as they creep down the halls. “Yeah, sure we will. You just want to get your hands on Lotor’s logs.”

“Who knows?” Pidge says, nonchalant. “Maybe Lotor has a sappy love log all about Keith.”

Shiro forces another laugh, but an uneasy feeling is starting to weigh on his chest. He’s starting to regret leaving the safety of his room and the impassive gaze of the moon.

They make it to the lab’s door, and Pidge hacks the door to open. They duck in and take cover behind some cabinets.

Lotor is still hard at work at his desk vargas later, the sound of his furious typing reaching Shiro and Pidge in their hiding spot.

Pidge clicks her tongue, and Shiro is about to suggest they head back before getting caught, when the door slides open again, and Keith steps in.

Pidge and Shiro hold their breath, but Keith doesn’t notice them, walking straight up to Lotor’s chair.

“You’re going to work yourself ragged at this rate,” Keith says, and Lotor jumps out of his typing as is awoken from a trance.

“Ah, Darling, I didn’t hear you come in,” Lotor chuckles wearily. “How was putting the children to bed?”

“Thace was easy, but then again, he’s a baby. He was already asleep after I fed him, so I just tucked him into his crib.”

Lotor smiles at that, and Keith hesitates, unsure if he should say the next part.

“The twins missed you at story time,” Keith tells him. “They were expecting you, the both of us, to tell a story together.”

Lotor runs a hand down his face. “I know. I know but I just…I have to make _sure_ the data is correct.”

“You’ve crossed checked over a hundred times, you nerd,” Keith points out. “Give it a rest already.”

Lotor sighs, pinching the bridge of his nose. “Just once mo—”

Before Lotor can finish his protest, Keith drapes his arms over the back of Lotor’s chair, brushing a kiss against his temple.

“Lotor, _please,”_ Keith says softly. “Come to bed. You’ll have plenty of time to work on this in the morning. Your lab team can help too.”

Lotor melts back against his chair under Keith’s arms. “You make a compelling argument, my love.” He pauses, but after a moment more in Keith’s embrace, he closes all the screens he has up. “You’re right, of course.”

Keith smirks down at him. “Aren’t I always?”

Lotor laughs, reaching up to grasp Keith’s hands in his own. “What would I do without you?” The gentle, reverent look is back on Lotor’s face, and Shiro feels sick to his stomach. This atmosphere doesn’t bode well.

“Probably be thrown back into gay baby jail by the Coalition,” Keith says, leaning down.

Lotor snorts, tipping his head back to meet Keith’s eyes. “True,” he breathes into the small space between them.

They move ever closer, and before Shiro can see their lips meet, Pidge covers his eyes.

“Sorry,” she whispers hands shaking over his face. “I’m sorry, let’s head back after they leave.”

Shiro isn’t sure if the moisture on his face is from Pidge’s sweaty palms or something else entirely.

***

The next morning, they act like nothing happened. Shiro and Pidge follow Allura, Hunk and Lance down the hall, back to the room Lotor first took them to when he brought them into the castle.

No one else is in the room yet, but there’s a lavish course for breakfast set on the table, tented by delicate lace food covers, with plates and cups at each chair. It’s obvious that the room has also been tidied up by servants, though none of them have seen any workers in the castle yet.

The paladins fidget, not sure whether they should start eating without their “hosts.”

Just as they decide to at least take their seats, the door slides open, and a sleepy Lotor steps in, holding a bright-eyed Thace in the curl of his arm.

He’s wearing a ribbed tank top and a pair of sweatpants, making the paladins, in their borrowed Altean-esque sleep robes, feel overdressed.

There’s a suspiciously dark mark on the side of Lotor’s neck, visible with his hair tied up in a messy bun. It’s deep violet bruise that weighs on Shiro’s head and stomach like a pound of lead. Shiro looks away before the weight can settle on his heart too.

Lotor seats Thace in a high chair, and then plops into the seat beside it, yawning.

Before awkward silence ensues, the door slides open again, and Keith walks in, the twins squirming excitedly in his arms.

Keith sets them down, and they race to their seats, leaning over the table and knocking back food covers until they find a dish they like. Their eyes sparkle when the last food cover is pushed aside, and they start piling pancakes on their respective plates. Keith snags the pot of syrup before the either twin can reach it, and drizzles a healthy amount on their stacks, far less than the drenching Shiro assumes they would have done themselves.

As the twins start devouring their pancakes, Keith walks over to the other side of the table to press a kiss to the top of Thace’s head. Thace responds by continuing to chew on his fist.

Lotor gives them the dopiest, love-struck look, and Keith responds with a chaste kiss to Lotor’s lips in greeting.

This time, Pidge can’t cover Shiro’s eyes, and Shiro doesn’t know what’s worse; the private intimacy in the lab, or the casual intimacy they share over breakfast. They both hurt. He swallows it down harshly with his dry toast.

Keith finally seats himself across from Lotor and turns to address the paladins. “How did you guys sleep last night?”

Allura, ever the diplomat, answers. “Well, thank you. Your accommodations on such short notice were very generous.”

Keith chuckles. “You don’t have to so stiff Allura.” Keith softens in sympathy. “Though I suppose it’s still hard to wrap your head around the situation you’re in right now.”

The paladins all nod together. Hunk, who has been eyeing the food for a while, decides to speak up.

“So uh, what’s up with the grub? This is definitely not food goo. This all looks really…earthy to me.”

Now Lotor laughs. “That’s because it is. Now that the war is over and the Coalition is solidified, the Earth is our ally, and we have free trade established. Which means we can make Earth dishes easily.”

“We can have pancakes every day!” Minnie exclaims, waving her fork in the air.

“But we don’t,” Keith adds, “because pancakes every day isn’t part of a balanced diet.”

Lotor nods in agreement and Minnie pouts, shoving a strawberry into her mouth.

“What are your children’s names?” Allura asks, while serving some scrambled eggs onto her plate. “We were never formerly introduced.”

“Ah, right!” Lotor says. “Where are our manners?” Keith rolls his eyes and takes a sip of tea. “Paladins of Voltron, may I present to you our first born and first prince, Ulaz.” Lotor gestures to Ulaz, who until now was quietly shoveling blueberries into his mouth. “Our second born and first princess, Minerva.” Lotor gestures to Minnie, who is dangerously tipping back a full cup of orange juice into her mouth. “And lastly, our third born and second prince, Thace.” Lotor gestures finally to Thace, who is being fed mashed bananas by Keith.

“Cute,” Pidge comments.

“So I get why you named those two,” Lance says, pointing his fork at Ulaz and Thace. “Great Galra sacrifices and all, but what’s up with Minerva?”

“Galra are cat people,” Keith begins to explain.

“We are _not_ cat people,” Lotor interrupts.

“So I named her after the most badass cat person,” Keith continues as if Lotor hadn’t spoken at all.

“BADASS!” Minnie cheers, banging her fists on the table.

Lotor sighs in exasperation. “Love, I really wish you wouldn’t say rude words the children can repeat easily.” Keith shrugs unapologetically, so Lotor turns to Lance. “We also wanted a name similar to my mother’s, so there is that.”

“Hmmm,” Lance hums, seemingly deep in thought. “Won’t it get confusing though? Thinking about their predecessors?”

“No?” Keith responds. “They’re dead. And one is fictional.”

Lance ignores him. “I got it!” He points at Ulaz. “You’ll be Lil ‘Laz!” 

Ulaz’s entire face wrinkles in distaste. 

“Thace will be Baby Thace!” Lance continues.

Thace grunts and smacks his bowl of bananas straight into Lotor’s chest. Lotor sighs as he picks up a napkin to clean up the mess.

Finally, Lance turns to Minnie, who has been vibrating in her seat, waiting for a nickname.

“Minerva, huh? Minnie is also a character, so…you’ll be…” Lance looks Minnie, over wracking his brain for an answer. Then he focuses on her high half up ponytail style that sticks up nearly at the top of her head. “I know! You’ll be ‘onion head!’”

About 0.1 seconds after Minnie’s entire face falls, a knife flies across the table and lodges itself in the slim space between Lance’s plate and the edge of the table before him. He looks up cautiously to see Keith glaring at him.

“You call my daughter an ‘onion head’ again, and I’ll slice your face into so many layers that’s all anyone will ever call you,” Keith threatens.

“Apologize to Minnie!” Ulaz adds, doing his best impression of Keith’s glare. “Or I’ll have Daddy experiment on you!”

“Now, now,” Lotor says with a serene smile on his face. “Experimenting on Lance would be unethical, so I won’t do that. However, if Lance decides to insult my Princess Minerva again, I’ll have his guest quarters locked, and he’ll be invited to sleep outside of the castle.”

Thace throws his spoon at Lance, a belated imitation of Keith that actually hits Lance square in the head.

“OUCH, ok, I’m sorry!” Lance cries.

The rest of the paladins start laughing, and Shiro finds himself joining in, thought it feels more like a hollow echo. 

After breakfast is finished, Thace is laid out on a blanket on the floor, and Ulaz and Minnie shake rattles above him, battling for his attention.

The paladins stand and stretch, Lance whining and rubbing his forehead all the while.

Lotor and Keith go over a few more logs compiled from the lab work from yesterday. They stand close, speaking soft and low to each other in a language Shiro can only assume is Galran. Keith points out something in the data, and Lotor lights up, setting that piece of information aside and talking more animatedly. Keith just smiles up at Lotor, and Shiro almost hates how happy and content Keith looks.

Shiro can’t help but stare, though it feels like looking directly at the sun. Blinding. Piercing. So strong and overwhelming, tears can’t help but gather in his eyes.

The door slides open, and Shiro expects to see servants filing in to clean up the table, but instead sees Kolivan standing in the doorway. He looks a bit older, more weathered, but has a satisfied air about himself.

Kolivan surveys the room, and when he sees the young paladins, his eyes widen. “I still can’t believe it,” he breathes.

Before Shiro or the team can respond, the twins immediately jump up, abandoning Thace’s rattles to run over.

“Grandpa!” they yell, clinging to his legs.

Kolivan chuckles, patting their heads affectionately. “You two get bigger every time I see you.”

Ulaz and Minnie grin up at him, hugging his legs tighter. “We missed you!”

Kolivan softens considerably. “I’ve missed you too.”

“Thanks for coming on such short notice, Kolivan,” Keith says, walking over to greet him.

“Yes, we appreciate it,” Lotor adds, putting his logs away and joining Keith. “Especially after you just finished your mission.”

Kolivan just laughs, scooping the twins up and giving them a brief squeeze. “Please. Spending time with my honorary grandchildren is like a holiday.” He pauses to set the twins back down, and they wander over to their toy chest. “Now where is my newest grandson?”

Lotor turns to get Thace from his blanket, and hands him over to Kolivan.

Kolivan inspects Thace thoughtfully, and Thace stares back at Kolivan just as deeply. The stalemate is broken when Thace sneezes in Kolivan’s face, and Kolivan smiles broadly. He head butts Thace affectionately, and then cradles him.

“He will be strong, just like his predecessor,” Kolivan announces.

Both Lotor and Keith puff up in pride and excitement.

Next, he addresses the twins. “Come, little ones. I’ll be looking after you today.”

The twins dash over, and with a nod of farewell to everyone in the room, Kolivan leaves with the children.

“We asked Kolivan to babysit last night,” Keith explains.

“We thought it best to deal with the situation at hand without three little ones to worry about,” Lotor adds in.

Shiro nods in approval, speaking for the team. “That does seem like the best course of action to take.”

Lance steps forward. “I have a quick question though.”

Immediately, Keith and Lotor’s faces fall into exasperation, expecting the same disaster that happened over breakfast.

“How were your kids…made?”

Keith tilts his head to the side in confusion while Lotor blushes straight to the roots of his hair and splutters. A hand drifts up to cover the mark on his neck, and Shiro glares at the action.

“Do you…not understand basic biology, Lance?” Keith asks.

“Of course I do! But both of you are guys, right? Was there a surrogate? Were they adopted?” Lance pauses for dramatic effect. “…Were they test-tube babies!?”

Lotor, realizing Lance wasn’t asking about his and Keith’s sex life, relaxes. “We had them naturally, of course.”

Lance gives Lotor a double take. “WOAH! Is there something about Galra anatomy I don’t know about?” He squints, and then turns to Allura, eyebrows wiggling. “Or maybe it’s from your Altean side?”

Allura looks ready to pummel Lance into the ground.

“Wait,” Keith says, an eyebrow raised in disbelief. “Lance, you _do_ know I’m trans, right?”

Lance freezes. “What?”

Keith groans. “Oh my god. You saw me _shirtless_ once!”

“We were going to the pool! And you had a towel over your shoulders!” Lance protests, looking dizzy in shock.

Lotor laughs. “In his defense Love, your chest is rather…small.”

Keith scowls at his husband, swiftly elbowing him in the side.

_“And entirely to my preference,”_ Lotor continues with a wheeze.

“Wha-what about you guys!?” Lance asks, turning to the rest of the paladins. “Did you know?”

Shiro and Pidge stare at Lance with a deadpan look that screams, ‘Really? Are you serious?’

Hunk smiles apologetically. “Yeah I knew. I was in the nurse’s office once while Keith was getting hormones in the garrison.”

Allura shrugs. “I knew the moment I saw him. Coran did too. There were many in Altea like Keith.”

Lance looks like he might faint. Pidge and Hunk grab each of his arms to steady him.

Keith sighs, bringing up a holoscreen from his wrist communicator. “If this’ll put this whole mess of a situation to rest…” A picture pops up, and the paladins huddle in to get a closer look.

It’s an image of Keith, laying on a padded examination table in what looks like an updated version of the castle ship’s infirmary. Keith looks like a beached whale, well into pregnancy and bloated so much you can barely see his head over his stomach. His face is haggard and he flips off the camera casually. Pidge is standing beside his stomach with a stethoscope around her neck, dabbing. Lotor stands at the head of the table behind Keith, massaging Keith’s shoulders with worry etched into his features. Nearby, a machine displays vitals in Altean. A brown finger in the top left corner of the screen hints that Hunk may have been the one taking the photo.

“I was pregnant with the twins at the time and experiencing false contractions,” Keith says into the stunned silence.

Finally, Pidge speaks up. “Is that older me?”

Keith seems to only just realize that too. “Oh, yeah. For me it’s the past, but for you it’s the future.”

Pidge gets stars in her eyes. “Wow. So I grow my hair out again, huh?”

Keith shrugs. “For a bit. You change your hair style a lot because you can never decide what feels comfortable. Currently, you buzzed everything off.”

Pidge’s jaw drops and Hunk takes the opportunity to speak, pointing to the corner of the picture. “Is that _my_ finger?”

Keith chuckles. “Yeah, both of you were examining me for complications that day, and insisted on a picture to go with whatever info you gathered.”

“What am I like when I’m older?” Hunk asks excitedly.

Keith pauses, looking at Lotor and communicating simply with his eyes. Lotor shrugs and smiles. In the middle of Pidge’s questions, Lotor got an arm wrapped around Keith’s waist. Shiro glowers at it.

“You get a scar on your jaw before the war is over,” Keith starts, running his finger over his own face to emphasize where it is. “And your cooking is pretty legendary throughout the galaxy.”

“I’m a chef?” Hunks asks, bouncing.

“Kind of?” Keith answers. “It’s kind of like your part time job. You and Pidge run a lot of joint labs together on various planets for the most part.”

Hunk and Pidge turn to each other with wide, shining eyes, and start wildly gesturing to each other to avoiding screaming. Keith puts the picture away.

Allura steps forward, hesitating a little before steeling herself. “How about me?”

Keith smiles at her kindly. “You’re known as Queen Allura here, leader of the Voltron Coalition. You’re queen of the greatest and vastest galaxy alliance ever known.”

Allura’s eyes grow misty and her smile wobbles. “Thank you,” she tells Keith.

Keith laughs and takes her hands in his. “You did it all yourself, Allura. Be proud.”

A few tears slide down her face, and Allura steps back to wipe them away.

Lance almost runs into Keith in his eagerness, jabbing a thumb into his own chest. “How about _me?”_

Keith rolls his eyes. “You’re still trying to play at being the great, destined hero.” Keith smirks. “You’re lucky the rest of the paladins are retired, because now you can actually succeed.”

“Hmph! You’re just jealous that it’s me being hero to the universe, and not you!” Lance huffs.

“Sure Lance,” Keith humors him. “It’s not like I’m married, with three kids, and I don’t have an entire planet to co-lead with my husband.”

“About that…” Lance’s eyes grow way too bright for anyone’s liking. “Is there anyone special in my life too?”

Keith sighs, and Lotor takes over. “Yes, you’re married,” he states, blandly matter-of-fact. “You actually got married before Keith and I did.”

Lance gasps as if he’s sucked all the air in the room into his lungs. “Who is she!? He!? Who!?”

Keith wrinkles his nose. “We’re not telling you. Knowing you, you’ll get overexcited and scare them off when you return to the past, and destroy your own future. Our Lance wouldn’t forgive us if we let that happen.”

“Aw come on!” Neither Keith or Lotor budge. Lance begs, “Just a hint then, please!”

“Let’s just say that your increased maturity in the coming years is what allows your future spouse to finally tolerate you enough to marry you,” Lotor relents.

Lance pouts, but doesn’t push it.

Shiro isn’t sure if he should ask. What does learning about the future matter if he isn’t with Keith? What kind of future would that be?

“You’re not going to ask?” Keith says, reading Shiro as easily as he always has.

Shiro looks at Keith in surprise, and finds Keith soft gaze on him. Shiro almost forgets the rest of the paladins are there, or that Lotor’s arm is still wrapped around Keith’s waist.

Shiro could never say no to that expression. “Where am I?”

Keith pauses, a bit perplexed by the way Shiro phrased it, but then relaxes into a smile. “You’re home, Shiro.”

Shiro wants to ask what that means, because he hasn’t felt at home anywhere since the Kerberos mission, but then the communicator on Lotor’s wrist starts beeping insistently.

Lotor checks it and sighs. “My lab team is here. I’ll go meet them and give them instruction, then get ready to join them.”

Keith turns to face Lotor, and nods. “In the meantime I’ll show these five around the kingdom.”

“That sounds good,” Lotor agrees. He gives Keith a wistful smile. “I almost don’t want to leave you, especially since the children are gone too.”

Keith rolls his eyes fondly. “You think I can’t handle these five on my own? They were _my_ friends first, if you’ll remember.”

“I know,” Lotor says, cupping Keith’s cheek and running his thumb affectionately down the mark there. “I just can’t help but worry.”

Keith nuzzles into the hand for a moment and then pulls away. “Don’t. You know what I’m capable of. And if I need help, I’ll ask for it. Focus your worry in the lab.”

“Right,” Lotor says, stepping back. “I’ll see you at dinner, Darling?”

“Yeah, so get lost already, Loser,” Keith replies.

Lotor laughs, and with one more tender look Keith’s way, he leaves.

***

Keith gives them time to change and get ready after breakfast, and then leads them out of the castle through the same hallway Lotor led them in. He’s wearing the same mishmash Blade-Galra suit he wore yesterday, minus the backpack-baby carrier. 

Once they make it outside, Keith turns back and smiles apologetically at them. “I have to check on the Blades really quick, but when I’m done, I can take you anywhere you want to go.”

They head over to a clearing behind the castle, where about twenty young Blades are sparring, and ten sit on the sidelines, nursing light wounds and bruises. Nevertheless, once Keith comes into view, they all drop what they were doing, stand straight, and salute with a fist on their chests.

“Leader, sir!” they yell out in unison.

Keith gives them a small, almost embarrassed smile. “At ease.”

Immediately, the formal air dissipates, and most of the Blades return to what they were doing before. A group of five runs straight up to Keith, their enthusiasm practically rolling off of them.

“Keith! We were hoping you could critique our form?”

Keith shakes his head. “Next time, I promise. I can’t stay long today because Lotor and I have…unforeseen guests staying with us.”

Keith gestures to the paladins behind him, and suddenly all the Blades pause to stare.

“Uh,” starts the same Blade that asked for the critique. “Is it just me or do those five look a lot like the Paladins of Voltron, but younger?”

All the Blades nod in agreement with her, in all varying levels of bewilderment.

“They came here through a quintessence rift,” Keith explains. “Lotor is looking for a way to send them back safely, so I’ll be watching them for now.”

“I see…” the Blade responds. Then she perks up. “Will they be joining us for sparring?”

Keith looks back at the paladins and then shrugs. “If they want to.”

“This could be a once in a lifetime opportunity to train with the Blade of Marmora!” Allura says. “How about it?” she asks the other paladins.

Shiro hesitates, remembering the trials Keith had to go through. But this is just training practice, so he nods along with Allura. “Seems like a good opportunity to sharpen our fighting.”

The five Blades who approached Keith grin excitedly, each one grabbing a paladin and dragging them over to the center of the field. They go at it for a few rounds, with Keith sometimes yelling out instructions or corrections for both the Blades and paladins alike. Soon, the paladins are exhausted, and retreat to sit by Keith.

“Holy quiznack!” Lance complains, rubbing his back. “This is harder than the castle ship’s simulator!”

“I’m gonna be sore forever,” Hunk groans.

“Hey Keith?” Pidge asks.

“Hm?”

“Why did the Blades recognize us, but not your kids?”

“Oh,” Keith says. “That’s probably because they only know you guys as adults, and retired from Voltron. I don’t think they can really reconcile the image they have with your ‘past’ selves.”

Pidge nods and there’s a lull of silence where all the paladins rehydrate and Keith watches the Blades train.

“You’re the leader of the Blade of Marmora now?” Shiro asks after finishing his carton of water.

“Yeah,” Keith says, still watching the training. “Kolivan retired five years ago and named me his successor. He’s still active and goes on missions, but he’s slowing down and prefers to watch the kids instead.” Keith smirks. “Despite his image, he’s a doting grandfather.”

“What do the Blades do, in this era of peace?” Allura asks.

“Since the Galra people unified under our kingdom, the Blade of Marmora are no longer considered rebels. We still have our troops and sentries from the days of the empire, but the Blades act more like an elite task force,” Keith answers.

Another group of Blades come up, with excited gleams in their eyes. “Are you guys done resting? Will you spar with us next?”

Keith raises an eyebrow at them. “You guys up to their challenge?”

Lance jumps up immediately, but then staggers and falls face flat. The Blades laugh and giggle, and Hunk hauls Lance up.

“Yeah, yeah, we’re coming,” Hunk sighs.

Allura and Pidge stand up to join them. Pidge turns to looks at Shiro.

“Are you coming?”

Shiro shakes his head. “Go on ahead without me.”

“Feeling tired?” Keith asks.

Shiro shakes his head again but doesn’t say anything. The carton crumples in his grasp.

Silence grows as Keith stares at Shiro. He tries his best to ignore Keith’s contemplative gaze, but he flinches when Keith calls a Blade over.

“Yes, sir?” the Blade asks.

“Will you do me a favor and watch those four? If they get bored training, then you and the other trainees have permission to conclude training and take them to the market,” Keith says.

The Blade salutes, pounding his chest with vigor. “Yes, sir!”

Keith turns to Shiro. “Alright, sourpuss, you’re coming with me.”

Before Shiro can protest, Keith is already walking into the surrounding forest. He looks back to the training grounds, but the Blades ignore him, and his team is distracted by sparring or chatting.

“Hurry up!” Keith calls, already sounding thirty feet ahead.

Shiro steps over underbrush and nearly trips over vines and tree roots to catch up with Keith. Shiro finds Keith standing in a small, natural alcove.

Keith turns around with his arms folded over his chest. “What do you want to say to me, Shiro?”

Shiro clenches his fists at his side, and frowns. “What’s there to say?”

“Takashi.” Keith glares. “Don’t be stubborn.”

“What am I supposed to say!?” Shiro starts again, tears pricking the backs of his eyes. “What am I supposed to say when you’re married to another man, happily flirting with him, and flaunting your three kids with him!?” Shiro grits his teeth. “What am I supposed to say when you obviously don’t love me!?”

“I do love you,” Keith says plainly. He tilts his head a bit to the side. “When did I say I didn’t?”

Shiro falters. “I…but…you’re married…”

Keith sighs, turning his face to soak up the sun streaming into their hideaway. A distant look crosses his face. “A lot is going to change in these next years for you. Not that a lot hasn’t already but…” Keith sighs again, trying to find his words. “The war changed a lot for us, Shiro.”

“What do you mean?” Shiro asks. What more change could there be? Shiro already felt like a shell of himself, like a nearly new person.

Keith looks directly into Shiro’s eyes. “When the war ended, everyone talked about finally being able to go home, even just for a visit. But I realized my life was here. I don’t belong on Earth. I never did.”

Shiro is reminded of times Keith got into fights at the Garrison, biting back tears and licking his wounds, angry that he couldn’t fit in. Shiro, at least, wanted to make a place for Keith in his arms.

Keith’s expression got sadder, but he smiled. “You were _so_ tired, Shiro. The war took the most out of you. Physically,” Keith squeezes Shiro’s arm right where his flesh becomes metal. “Emotionally,” Keith makes eye contact with Shiro and the despair is bare in his eyes. “I knew you just wanted to go back with the others and rest. But I never intended to. And it would be selfish of me to ask you to stay.”

Shiro’s eyes feel like they’re swimming in tears. His answering smile is brittle. “I always knew you belonged to the stars.”

Keith looks just as devastated. “You deserved to go home and be the hero you were meant to be after Kerberos. I wasn’t going to take away the Garrison Golden Boy a second time.”

“I always thought you’d be with me when I came back,” Shiro muses sadly. “I thought you were going to be the first one to welcome me home.”

“Me too.” Keith looks far away again.

“In the future…my future…does something happen with Lotor, that ruins us?” Shiro asks, tongue and heart heavy. “Did he force the arranged marriage on you?”

Keith sighs. “No. Our relationship was done before I even entertained Lotor in my heart.” Keith pauses. “And for the record, I’m the one who proposed the idea of Lotor and I getting married to the Coalition. Lotor simply agreed to it.”

Shiro is dumbstruck. “Why?”

Keith shrugs. “You’ll see. My and Lotor’s union had many benefits, and few drawbacks. I took the opportunity to make peace between the Galra and the Coalition more secure.”

“But you still love me,” Shiro challenged.

Keith met his hard gaze with an impassive one. “I do. I’ll always love you. Takashi, there’s no replacing you in my heart. You’re the person who changed my life, who never gave up on me. You’re my best friend. I considered you my soulmate.”

“If you feel that way, then how could you have married Lotor?” Shiro can’t make sense of this situation.

Keith stays silent for several beats, and Shiro almost thinks this situation will be revealed as an elaborate farce, that this whole marriage is a joke and Shiro caught him in the act. But then, Keith speaks.

“A heart is bigger than you think,” Keith begins. “I realized that, while Lotor and I were courting. He knew I loved you going into our relationship, and he knows I still love you in our marriage. How could he not? You carved your place into my heart Shiro, and you’ll remain there forever. But when I knew our paths had to diverge, I stopped making space for you. I keep all my love for you, but it’s stuck there. I won’t let it grow anymore.”

“So that’s it then?” Hopelessness crushes Shiro. He doesn’t know what else to say that can possibly fix this.

Keith nods. “I’m sorry. I wish you didn’t have to learn this way.”

Shiro shakes his head. “It’s fine. I had to learn eventually right? Better heartbroken sooner than later.”

“Taka—” Keith starts, but suddenly his communicator goes off, and a screen pops up from his wrist.

“Keith!” Kolivan’s voice can barely be heard over Thace’s wailing. “I’m sorry but I’ll need you to come get Thace. He’s hysterical! I was with the kids in the market, when we ran into the young paladins and Blade recruits. Thace didn’t see you with the other Blades, and got distressed.”

Thace pauses his screaming, and notices Keith’s image in the small screen on Kolivan’s side. Fat tears roll down his cheeks as he reaches for the image of Keith.

“Babba! Babba…!” He begins to wail and thrash again.

Keith smiles at the screen. “Thace, it’s ok. Papa will be there soon.”

Thace continues to cry, but Kolivan’s face melts into relief. Keith cuts the comm link and sighs.

“Duty calls,” he says, as an apology to Shiro. “We should head back.”

Keith marches past him, but Shiro turns and grabs Keith’s hand to make him stop.

“Wait,” Shiro pleads. “Just tell me one thing. If you could go back and change things, would you?”

A shadow passes over Keith’s face, obscuring his expression. Shiro fears he may have finally crossed the line with Keith, and an apology is on the tip of his tongue, when Keith leans in and kisses Shiro on the cheek.

Shiro freezes in shock, but just as soon as the kiss happened, Keith pulls away. Shiro sees a few stray tears fall down Keith’s cheeks, and he desperately wants to wipe them away, but he feels rooted still. Keith smiles up at him.

“Probably not,” he admits. “I love my kids. I love my kingdom. I _am_ sorry we didn’t make it in the end, but I never regretted my choice.” Keith pauses, smile wobbling and more tears spilling. “And I didn’t want to tell you, but I love him too. I fell for him, and I still find myself falling every day we spend together. He’s redeemed himself, and he’s still trying his best to reverse the damage of the Galra Empire, while helping the Coalition. How can I not admire that? How can I not love a man who does everything to make me, and our children, the happiest?”

“Ok,” Shiro says, blinking his own tears away. “I get it.”

“I’m sorry, Takashi,” Keith whispers, and walks away.

***

The walk over to the market is quiet, and Shiro welcomes it. Blissfully, it’s numb; he no longer stews in his thoughts, all of them fleeing just as his heart did. They make it to the market square, and in the center is a frazzled Kolivan trying to soothe a flailing Thace. They make quite the sight, surrounded by fledgling Blades and time-traveling paladins.

As soon as Keith is in sight, Thace reaches for him desperately. Keith welcomes Thace into his arms and rubs his back. Thace hiccups into Keith’s neck.

“See? Papa didn’t leave you. Papa isn’t going anywhere,” Keith says softly, gently rocking Thace.

“Papa.” The twins peek out from behind Kolivan.

Keith smiles warmly at them. “There you two are. Are you doing alright?”

They walk over and hug Keith’s legs. Ulaz speaks up. “Is Daddy done in the lab yet?”

“Not yet, I think,” Keith says, double-checking his communicator for any messages. “But Daddy will be having dinner with us, and he’ll be happy to hear you missed him.”

Minerva hugs Keith’s leg tighter. “Can we go home, Papa?”

Keith pats her head. “Of course, Minnie. We’ll all go home together.”

Shiro can’t watch without feeling a little sick to his stomach. He wanted a future where these loving children didn’t exist. On top of everything, the guilt alone makes Shiro want to disappear.

***

The next day, Lotor drags the five of them out of their guest quarters at the break of dawn, announcing that his experiment was a success. With deep bags under his eyes, he takes them down, and lab assistants inject all the paladins with a serum Lotor assures is to “prevent complications” when returning to their time.

Lotor keeps them in the lab for a few more hours to run some preliminary tests to ensure the serum is working properly in their systems. Then Keith rolls into the lab, fresh out of bed, probably to check on Lotor who presumably pulled an all-nighter.

Lotor runs over to him as soon as he steps in, picking Keith up and spinning him around, planting kisses all over his face. Keith laughs and pushes him away, but Lotor just resorts to kissing Keith’s palms instead.

Finally, the tests beep complete on his screens, and Lotor, satisfied with the results, releases the paladins to go back to their lions. The royal family comes along to see them off.

“You could stay for breakfast, you know?” Keith says, eyeing the lions appreciatively, lingering on Red and Black.

Keith has a drowsy Ulaz on his hip, while Lotor carries a sleeping Thace, and they both hold Minerva’s hands. She swings happily between them in their firm grasp.

Ulaz tugs on Keith’s shirt. “Papa, which one did you pilot?”

“The red lion, mostly,” Keith answers. “The black lion, for a short while.”

“Papa was piloting the Black lion when we met,” Lotor tells their children.

“Yeah, let’s _not_ remember _those_ times,” Keith warns him.

“Thank you for the offer,” Allura says. “But we really should be returning to our own time. I hate to think of Coran all alone right now.”

“Plus we don’t want to disrupt the flow of time any more than we have already,” Pidge adds.

“Thanks for the hospitality!” Hunk grins. “Especially all the food from home.”

“It was a pleasure having you all here,” Lotor says genuinely, but he looks so exhausted he could crawl into bed and sleep for the two days the paladins “visited.”

“Don’t miss us too much!” Lance winks at Minerva and Ulaz, but Minerva sticks her tongue out at him and Ulaz sniffs before turning to look over Keith’s shoulder instead.

“What exactly did you inject us with?” Shiro asks. “You didn’t really explain, just stabbed us with needles while we were dead on our feet.”

“It’s a liquid form of quintessence that will activate in your bloodstream once you pass through the rift and revert your memories to the point just before you came here,” Lotor answers bluntly.

Shiro can literally listen to a leaf fall to the ground in the deafening silence that follows.

“YOU INJECTED US WITH MEMORY-WIPING JUICE!?” Lance yells.

The rest of the paladins are still shocked still. Keith gives them an apologetic smile.

“It’s a precaution,” he explains. “And it has no other lasting effects, so don’t worry. But we can’t let you leave here with knowledge of the future, in case you accidentally change the flow of time and alter this reality.”

“W-Why did you lie to us!?” Pidge accuses.

“Please understand,” Lotor soothes. “We’re happy here. You five are too. Just trust us, and keep living and fighting through the war. You’ll see when you get here naturally, this is a future we have to protect.”

Allura and Hunk are still speechless, so Shiro speaks for them. “Guys, let’s go home. They’re right. We never should have been here, and we shouldn’t have learned of our own future. It’s better this way.”

Reluctantly, the paladins go to their lions, and once seated, they form Voltron. The whole team is quiet as they rocket off of New Daibazzal, but Shiro turns back to look at Keith one last time, before they get too far away.

Minerva is jumping up and down, waving, Ulaz has his face scrunched, and Lotor is covering Thace’s ears from the noise. 

Keith looks up at Voltron ascending into the atmosphere, and mouths ‘Thank you.’

Shiro keeps his eyes closed until they pass completely through the rift.

**Author's Note:**

> For maximum pain, please listen to [this song](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H7z19xLjNXs) while rereading the Shiro-Keith scene to really get the feeling of Keith's side.
> 
> Some extra notes and things you may have missed about the Royal Galra Family:  
> \- Ulaz and Minerva are three and a half years old (they were conceived on Keith and Lotor's honeymoon, lmao)  
> \- Thace is six months old  
> \- Keith's official title is "King Consort," which has a nice ring when you add his name in  
> \- Lotor's terms of endearment: Darling and Love (plus one more, but I'll save that for an explicit fic ;P)  
> \- Keith's terms of endearment: Nerd and Loser (and occasionally Babe)  
> \- Keith and Lotor tend to share as much of their ruling responsibilities as they can; with the exception of the lab being solely Lotor's, and the Blade of Marmora being Keith's  
> \- The kids love both their parents equally, but they've inherited Keith's predisposition to tease Lotor  
> \- Lotor constantly worries about being a good father because of Zarkon and loves his children and Keith more than anything  
> \- Keith and the kids always reassure him that he's doing a good job though, with kisses and cuddles :')
> 
> I think that's all I have for right now, if you want more headcanons, or a more specific set of details like what the kids are like when they're older, etc., send me an ask on [my tumblr](http://jellyfishfics.tumblr.com/)
> 
> You can ask general questions about this AU there too, I may answer some with fics, who knows?
> 
> Also I'll slap [my twitter](https://twitter.com/jellyfishquips) on here because I'm the most active there. Come shout at me.
> 
> Thank you so much for reading, if you enjoyed this fic, please leave a kudos and comment! Let me know if you want more from this series below, I have a few fics planned!


End file.
